At any one time, depending on the
have clear ownership of the decision
product, dozens, if not hundreds, of
mechanism, but they also need to
these small, cross-functional teams
know the appropriate procedures for
will be working toward the same end
making changes and communicating
goal. In developing that flagship IP
about them. Accountability is critical,
router I mentioned, we had about 50
too, and we have established a good
teams working on disparate aspects
set of key performance indicators
but in coordination with one another.
toward that end. For example, we
Every team has an end-to-end view,
but each is assigned a feature or set
of features to complete on its own.
We try to give the teams as much
independence as possible, but we do
recognize that a significant amount of
coordination is required. Toward that
end, a program management team
takes the lead on the release, and we
optimize the end-to-end flow of the
development effort. We believe that's
what gives Ericsson a competitive
set long-term objectives and then
break those down into tactical KPIs,
which cover operational aspects such
as software fault density, hardware
returns, and feature velocity. We've
found that continuous measurement
likewise allows for continuous
improvements in efficiency
and quality.
Put Teams in Touch With
Customers
advantage in time to market and,
Taking measure of KPIs is important,
longer term, in efficiency.
but it's not the most significant
Make Teams Accountable
for Their Work
In the early phases, our focus is
on software architecture. We want
architectures that will scale across
multiple generations, so they have
to be both forward-looking and
backwards-compatible. As we
work on software architecture, we
consider not only standard use cases
but also scalability, maintainability,
serviceability, and total cost of
to motivate a development team
is to circle back after customer
deployment. Team members need to
see how the product they've developed
is being used in the real world. They
need to be aware of the product's
market traction and see that it's
generating revenue and is superior
to the competition's offering. A true
understanding of how the product
answers specific market needs can be
a great motivator.
We tried a bunch of different
development teams have the right
approaches, but we've found that
technical people on board and that
the most effective way to ensure
those people have enough time to do
success is to send our engineers into
their due diligence on architecture.
the field. Visiting with customers on
in achieving architectural integrity.
As I mentioned, the teams must
longer that such
development would
have taken in the
days of old.
motivator. I believe the best way
ownership. We make sure our
Technical governance is an imperative
When a
customer wants a
certain feature or
functionality, we
need to be able to
deliver it within
weeks - not the
months or
their premises gives them a deeper
understanding than they can gain by
phone, for example. In person, they
CTO Straight Talk | 43

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